Various means are known in the fields of medical treatment, patient care and welfare for fixing-and supporting human bodies in a desired position on beds, chairs, inspection and examination devices and the like, which means can include, for instance, sandbags; foamed blocks; negative pressure type fixing devices, plastic foams; and sheet-shaped appliances. However, such known means generally lack sufficient fixing or exact positioning properties and supporting properties; and in cases where the patient moves after an initial fixation, such means must be set again or adjusted, and thus, the range of utility of such means is limited. For instance, examples of a sandbag or a foamed product used as a simple and handy means for temporarily fixing or supporting a human body onto a bed or an examination table are disclosed in Japanese Examined Patent Application Publication No. Sho 59-49013. However, such sandbags and foamed products lack sufficient fixing properties; and thus, a drawback thereof is that they are not suited for cases where the human body must be fixed accurately or for application requiring long period of fixing or reproducibility of a previously fixed position. A negative pressure type fixing appliance, that is, an airtight bag containing foamed granulated materials, which bag is adapted in such a manner that, by evacuating the interior of the bag by means of a vacuum pump, fixing properties are imparted to the bag, is typically used in such a manner that, first, it is laid down on a bed, an inspection stand, an examination table, or a chair in a state filled up with air, and then a human body is placed on the appliance, which is then evacuated by means of a vacuum pump, whereby the shape of the human body is formed or modeled, for example, as disclosed in Japanese Examined Utility Model Application Publication No. Sho 56-18325. Such a negative type fixing appliance is convenient for temporarily fixing or supporting a large portion of a human body, but it does not possess long-term fixing properties or reproducibility, and, in addition, a large-sized vacuum pump must be used. Therefore, such a negative type fixing appliance has the drawback that it is generally best suited to be utilized only in special limited applications. Plastic foams and sheet-shaped fixing appliances are typically used in such a manner that the foam or sheet-shaped appliance is mounted on a part of a human body so as to fix, support, protect or correct the part of the human body by itself; and therefore, such plastic foams and sheet-shaped fixing appliances are light in weight but not well compatible with the living body, and various kinds or types thereof must be prepared in advance. These are drawbacks of such plastic foams and sheet-shaped fixing appliances. Furthermore, in the case where such plastic foams and sheet-shaped fixing appliances are fabricated so as to satisfy the specific requirement or condition in an individual case in order to secure a compatibility with a living body, a shortcoming arises with respect to the expense and time required for the manufacture thereof.
As an example of the case where supporting accuracy and/or reproducibility are required, there can be pointed out the case of treatment of cancers in the field of medical treatment. As one treating method therefor, radiation therapy is point out. As the types of cancers which can be healed by radiation therapy alone, there can be pointed out cancer of the head-neck, cancer of the cervix, cancer of the prostate, lymphogranuloma, cancer of the lungs, cancer of the esophagus, cancer of the bile duct, etc. In order to locally control or suppress such a tumor without the occurrence of a radiation hazard, the radiation treatment must be carried out in a very narrow dosimetric range. However, the control or suppression probability of tumors is conspicuously increased by increasing the dose of radiation. Thus, in order to control or suppress a tumor without the occurrence of a lesion or trouble in the normal tissues, it is important to determine an accurate exposure position and employ a well contrived exposure method; that is, how to concentrate the radiation dose on the tumor portion is important. To this end, it becomes necessary to perform exposure from two or more directions, and how to fix the patient's body so as to reduce the movement thereof is important. For that, treatments have so far been performed in such manner that a mark is put on the body surface of a patient using a marking ink or the like so as to allow positioning and aiming the radiation apparatus to emit its radiation onto the affected part accurately. With this method, however, a high-level of skill is required for the manipulation of the apparatus, and, further, it takes time to perform the positional adjustment. In addition, there is the further problem that, during exposure, the portion of the patient's body to be exposed to the radiation may be shifted due to the movement of the patient. Thus, for keeping the patient's body fixed, there have been practiced various methods such as the method according to which the contour or profile of the patient's body is modeled with a gypsum to make a negative model; from this negative model, a positive model is developed; in conformity with the thus made positive model, a shell is fabricated with a PVC resin, with which the patient's body is fixed, and the method according to which a plate made of a thermoplastic resin is softened to make a body-fixing shell directly from the patient's body, by use of which shell the patient's body is fixed. These methods are all of the type in which a fixing appliance is put over the patient from above to fix his or her body; and thus, since the patient is fixed only from the upper surface of his or her body, these methods are insufficient for the purpose of fixing the patient's whole body including the lower surface thereof. In addition, considerable time and skill are required for the fabrication of the required positive model. Further, the high-energy X-rays used have surface buildup characteristics such that the absorbed dose of high-energy X-rays gradually increases from the surface portion to the deeper portion, and, at a depth of several mm to several tens of millimeters (mm), the absorbed dose thereof reaches its peak value, and, the use of a PVC resin or a thermoplastic resin which has a high degree of radiation absorption has been found to result in increasing the body surface dose of the patient, thus causing radiation hazards such as dermatitis, etc. Therefore, it is important to use a material having a small radiation absorption as the material of the fixing appliance used in radiation therapy. Further, in radiation therapy, the exposure amount per one radiation dose is typically set at a small value in order to prevent the occurrence of an adverse reaction; and thus, the required exposure is made by dividing it into several tens of times, ranging over a period of several months. Due to this, the deformation, the breakage, the ease in preservation, the weight at the time of movement, etc. of the fixing appliances are important problems or factors. Additionally, a fixing appliance made of a PVC resin or a thermoplastic resin is liable to be deformed during normal storage and use and thus may not provide a sufficient fixation.
In the case of some physically handicapped persons, parts of their bodies are deformed to such a degree that it is difficult for them to sit on ordinary chairs, due to which, at present, supporting appliances fitted to the bodies of physically handicapped persons are made by modeling the contours or profiles of such physically handicapped persons' bodies repeatedly many times by the use of a gypsum or a resin. The problem with this method is that a number of steps and days are required for obtaining the finally finished supporting appliance, and in addition, a high level of fitting and manufacturing skill is required, and the manufacturing costs are high.
As the percentage of the population playing sports is increasing, the number of people who suffer injuries due to sports is also increasing. In particular, due to the fact that sports are professionalized, the contact in sporting competitions has become increasingly severe, as a result of which players and athletes tend to get injured more and more; and thus, for prevention of such injuries and for protection of the injured parts of players and athletes, various appliances are proposed. The appliances in this field are required to be light in weight and shock-resistant, so that it is necessary to make the appliances by the use of special material so as to accurately fit to the injured or protected parts of persons wearing these appliances. For that, the troublesome steps of making models and adjustment thereof are required, so that the manufacturing costs are high. If, in order to avoid such troublesome steps, a number of types of standard appliances are prepared in advance so that a user can select the most suitable one from among them, then it is costwise advantageous, but the selected appliance is not necessarily one perfectly suited to the user; and thus, the function of making an appropriate prevention or the function of protection cannot be fulfilled.
In the fields of automobiles, airplanes and other vehicles, the seats in vehicles required to have high speed or mobility are formed so that the bodies of the drivers can be tightly supported on the seats, and therefore, there arises the drawback that, in respect of the material, shape and fine adjustment mechanism of the seats, high-grade design techniques are required, which results in high manufacturing costs.